Dear Letter,
To be quite honest, it took me a few Jane Austen novels to make me ponder about you. To remember my school days wherein one of the only ways to communicate with someone were handwritten letters and even during the initial years of the internet age, as the internet was only accessible to a privileged few.
Gone are the days when one would go scurrying to the mailbox to find letters of a loved one or impatiently stalk the postman for a much awaited reply. Now our mailboxes are only checked for bills, notices or invitations. Thanks to the internet we have even forgotten the feeling of what it is like to receive a letter. First, find letters addressed to us were normal and today if we even spot one it is received with shock and surprise. Reading those long, lengthy, descriptive letters which comprised of a whole lot of experiences of many days put together is replaced by day to day one liners through emails or status messages on social networking sites.
Sending you to someone involved a unique process all together. Selecting the kind of paper, depending on who the recipient is. Considering the ink to be used. The flow of the fountain pen and to make sure the handwriting was impeccable as it should not only be readable but it added a different sensibility all together to the word. Sitting with the dictionary to avoid those nitty-gritty errors and reading them over and over again to make sure nothing is left out and everything written is perfect. Whereas, now everything is sorted out with just a click. One right click takes care of the font which by no means resembles our own, an animation which maybe in our dreams we could not draw and corrects our errors in just one glance, which, would have otherwise been found out after three to four readings.
The ways of interaction through the internet haven’t only in a way edited our writings considerably but also deteriorated our grammar. Today for many even picking up a pen seems like an effort. Somewhere down the line even though emails and social networking sites have made us more up to date about each other’s lives, the emotion is lost. We kind of take it for granted that the other person is fine because they are actively online immaterial whether you have received an email or not. While earlier, not receiving a letter would create a sense of panic.
Even the concept of pen pals has done a disappearing act. You want an unknown friend from some faraway place, just add them on facebook or chat with them online. After all who really has the patience to find out about someone through an exchange of several letters when you can just log on to their profile and find out all about him and her, right?
Yes, the internet has made longer distances closer but it has also caused the downfall of the art of letter writing. It has made us forget about you, about reading those one page long or sometimes even longer versions of you. To be honest, how many of us have the patience to even sit through a page long email for that matter. It would be if once in a while we took the effort to send one of you or else it wont be long when we heard or read about you in old films or classic novels.
In your remembrance…..
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